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Giant anaconda
: Other names: Boiúba, boiúna, camoodi, cobra-grande, controller, ibibaboka, lampalagua, matatora , sachamama, sucuriju gigante, yaurinka. : Country reported: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Venezuela Giant anacondas have been reported from the Amazon region, especially of Brazil, since South America was first colonized, and the maximum size of the anaconda is still a matter of debate. Other cryptozoological giant snakes include the pumina of Central Africa and the giant pythons reported from South and Southeast Asia.Eberhart, George (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology Description Sightings Undated 1907 Percy Fawcett famously claimed to have shot a giant anaconda in 1907, on the Rio Abuna: :"We were drifting easily along in the sluggish current not far below the confluence of the Rio Negro when almost under the bow of the boat there appeared a triangular head and several feet of undulating body. It was a giant anaconda. I sprang for my rifle as the creature began to make its way up the bank, and hardly waiting to aim smashed a .44 soft-nosed bullet into its spine, ten feet below the wicked head. At once there was a flurry of foam, and several heavy thumps against the boat's keel, shaking us as though we had run on a snag." :With great difficulty I persuaded the Indian crew to turn in shore-wards. They were so frightened that the whites showed all round their popping eyes, and in the moment of firing I had heard their terrified voices begging me not to shoot lest the monster destroy the boat and kill everyone on board, for not only do these creatures attack boats when injured, but also there is great danger from their mates." :We stepped ashore and approached the reptile with caution. It was out of action, but shivers ran up and down the body like puffs of wind on a mountain tarn. As far as it was possible to measure, a length of 45 feet lay out of the water, and 17 feet in it, making a total length of 62 feet. Its body was not thick for such a colossal length-not more than 12 inches in diameter -but it had probably been long without food. I tried to cut a piece out of the skin, but the beast was by no means dead and the sudden upheavals rather scared us. A penetrating foetid odour emanated from the snake, probably its breath, which is believed to have a stupefying effect, first attracting and later paralysing its prey. Everything about this snake was repulsive." :Such large specimens as this may not be common, but the trails in the swamps reach a width of six feet and support the statements of Indians and rubber pickers that the anaconda sometimes reaches an incredible size, altogether dwarfing the one shot by me. The Brazilian Boundary Commission told me of one killed in the Rio Paraguay exceeding 80 feet in length!"Fawcett, Brian & Fawcett, Percy (1953) Exploration Fawcett 1922 On 22 May 1922, during a time of floods, Father Victor Heinz was being taken home by canoe on the Amazon from Obidos when he noticed a "giant water snake" at a distance of around 30 yards. It was gently drifting upstream. He believed that it was 80 feet in length an as thick as an oil-drum, and the boatmen said that it would have crushed them "like a box of matches" had it not just eaten several large capybaras. 1929 Father Heinz saw another giant anaconda on 29 October 1929, at the mouth of the Rio Piaba. To escape the heat he went out onto the deck of his boat when, at around midnight, the crew suddenly became scared and began to row hard towards the shore. When Heinz enquired what they were doing they said that there was a big animal, and at the same moment he "heard the water move as if a steamboat had passed". Several feet above the surface of the water he saw two bluish-green lights like those on the bridge of a river boat, causing him to mistake it for a steamer, but the boatmen insisted it was a cobra grande. It avoided them and recrossed the river in less than a minute, which would have taken the boat 10 to 15 minutes. Once on dry land Heinz and the men shouted to attract the snake, and it rose to the surface once again, allowing Heinz to see the difference between its luminescent eyes and the light of the torch. He was later told that a sucuriju gigante lived at the mouth of the Piaba. 1930 On 6 July 1930, a Portuguese merchant name Reymondo Zima was going up the Rio Jamunda when he noticed a light on the right bank. Assuming it was a house, he steered towards it and switched on his own searchlight, only to notice that the "house light" was charging towards the boat at an incredible speed. A huge wave almost capsized the boat, and Zima and his family made out the shape of a giant snake rising from the water and "performing a St Vitus' dance aroud the boat". It then crossed the river at a fabulous speed, leaving a huge wake and once again almost capsizing the boat. Zima wrote that the animal must have lost one eye as the result of an injury, since he saw only one light, and believed that it had charged after mistaking his own searchlight for the eye of a fellow snake. On 27 September 1930, on a river leading from Lake Maruricana to the Rio Iguarape, a Brazilian named Jao Penha was cleaning the bank to make it easier for turtles to lay their eggs when he noticed two green lights, which he took to be fishermen coming to poach eggs, behind a floating "barrier" of vegetable matter and branches. Suddenly the "barrier" shook and a foaming wave 6 feet high struck the bank. Penha called to his two sons, and all three saw a giant snake emerge from the water and push the "barrier" in front of it some 300 yards upriver. 1932 In 1932, the Brazilian Boundary Commission is said to have killed a 98-foot snake with a diameter of 2 feet with machine guns on the banks of the Rio Negro. The snake had apparently risen up some 30 feet as it died, smashing bushes and small trees under its 2-tonne bulk. Four men were unable to lift its head. The animal was photographed, and the picture was developed in Manaus and later tracked down by Father Heinz. 1947 In 1947, following a Chavante massacre of Brazilian officials, a peacemaking party was sent up the Amazon by the Service for the Protection of the Indians. Whilst hunting capybaras in the swamps between the Rio Manso and the Rio Cristalino, a party of seven or eight men encountered an enormous anaconda asleep on the ground. They fired on it, and pursued it for 20 or 30 yards before it died. One of the men later said that "when we walked along the whole length of its body it seemed as if it would never end". Its head was around 2 foot long. As they had no measuring instruments they used a piece of string to estimate that the anaconda was around 23 meters, or 75 feet long, with a diameter of around 18 inches. The group carried no cameras, as they would be liable to scare the Chavantes and prompt another massacre, the the snake was too large for them to take its skin. None of the group, which included Brazilian officials and explorers, realised at the time that the snake was anything special, or even particularly large.Heuvelmans, Bernard (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals 1948 In 1948 Paul Tarvalho, an old pupil of Father Heinz, saw a giant snake emerge from the water some 250 or 300 yards away, in the same place on the Rio Jamunda as in the 1930 Zima sighting. He estimated it was about 150 feet long. It followed the boat, which made off at top speed, for some time. 1977 1997 Theories Further cryptozoological reading Notes and references Category:Cryptids Category:South America Category:Argentina Category:Brazil Category:Colombia Category:Guyana Category:Venezuela Category:Snakes Category:Unusually sized animals